Supreme Court Considers Setting Up Tribunal to Hear Petitions Against Laws Circumventing SR

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider a suggestion to set up a constitutional bench to hear petitions challenging the validity of the Modi government passing laws like the Aadhaar Act as money bills, allegedly to bypass the Rajya Sabha where it was in a minority. The BJP currently has 86 MPs and the ruling NDA 101 in the 245-member Rajya Sabha where the majority mark is 123. The passing of bills like the Aadhaar Act and even amendments to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as money bills, ostensibly to bypass the Rajya Sabha when the NDA did not have a majority there, has been at the centre of a major political and legal wrangle. Congress general secretary for communications Jairam Ramesh is one of the petitioners who have challenged the passage of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 as a money bill under Article 110 of the Constitution. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal told a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on Monday that the arguments were over and the petitions should be listed for hearing. Sibal said since the matter is already on the list of hearings scheduled by the Constitution Bench, such a bench should be set up on priority.

“I will take the call when I form the Constitution Benches,” the CJI told him. Later in the day, the Congress welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision agreeing to consider setting up a Constitution Bench to hear the pleas. The party is hopeful that a final verdict will be delivered before Chandrachud retires in November this year. Earlier, the Supreme Court had said it would constitute a seven-judge bench to examine the question of the validity of passing laws like the Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill. A Money Bill is a piece of legislation that can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha cannot amend or reject it. The Upper House can only make recommendations which may or may not be accepted by the Lower House. A bench headed by the CJI had earlier said that all pending issues of the seven-judge bench would be listed on October 12 last year for procedural directions. In November 2019, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had referred to a larger bench the issue of examining the validity of the enactment of the Finance Act, 2017 as a Money Bill. “The question of the Finance Bill, as defined in Article 110(1) of the Constitution, and the certification granted by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha in respect of Part XIV of the Finance Act, 2017 are referred to a larger bench,” it had said. The five-judge bench had then struck down in their entirety the rules governing the appointment and conditions of service of members of various tribunals that were part of the Finance Act. Earlier, another bench of the Supreme Court, while upholding the constitutional validity of the PMLA, had left the issue of enacting the amendments to it as a Money Bill open for adjudication by a larger bench. In the Aadhaar judgment, the Supreme Court had upheld the validity of the enactment of the law as a Money Bill. However, Justice Chandrachud, the current CJI, had written a dissenting judgment and termed the designation of the Aadhaar legislation as a Money Bill as a “fraud on the Constitution”.